Grupo Mexico SAB's Asarco unit asked a U.S. judge to throw out the $219.5 million settlement of its Omaha, Nebraska, lead-contamination case, claiming that the true source of the pollution was concealed by a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official who is under criminal investigation, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Asarco, which filed the largest environmental bankruptcy case in U.S. history to resolve pollution at about 100 sites nationwide, was misled into paying a “grossly inflated’’ settlement amount to resolve an EPA claim that a company smelter contaminated the Omaha site, Asarco attorneys said yesterday in a court filing. For the past year, Asarco has accused Robert Feild, the EPA’s Omaha lead project coordinator, with leading an evidence-destruction campaign that hid an agency study indicating the Nebraska property was probably contaminated by lead paint peeling from old houses rather than Asarco smelter emissions.
